


in memoriam

by ProtoDan



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), headcanon heavy, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoDan/pseuds/ProtoDan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen years. That was the length of time it took, from birth, for Viktor Alkaev to first dabble in funerary direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanons to get out of the way prior to the actual fic: I gave Viktor a last name. (According to BehindTheName, Alkaev means "to wish.")  
> In addition, I headcanon that Viktor and Orianna knew one another--and were, in fact, lovers--prior to her death and subsequent rebuilding. For more information, I suggest you check out the wonderful KathrynShadow's Viktor/Orianna tag.

 

* * *

Well-wishers told him it would get easier as time went by. Time heals all wounds. Nothing time can’t heal. Time, time, time… time went on second by second by dragging, agonizing second, tick, tock. Tick. Tock. Habits and routines repeating endlessly, no variation, no reprieve. The world became as much a fog as the sky over his home.

Nothing about it was right. A fire in the lab with no source. Workplace negligence from two of the brightest minds in the city. It made no sense. Wrong, wrong, _wrong–_

Thirteen years. That was the length of time it took, from birth, for Viktor Alkaev to first dabble in funerary direction. 

They were buried in a humble plot not far from the house; the boy–and he was truly, truly a boy, not old enough to be settling his own parents’ affairs like this–had no access to their funds for a few more years, and so he requested a public plot. Easily degradable caskets, minimal embalming, so the sickly Zaun soil could more readily absorb the nutrients from the fresh corpses inside. A child should not have to consider these things.

The lawyers allowed him enough of his inheritance to fund the smallest memorial service possible. (Such charity.) Some up-and-coming student of chemical biology delivered a short speech about the late Alkaevs’ nutrients feeding the earth and, by extension, their surviving family.

The man didn’t even have the awareness to note that their surviving family consisted of but one shaken, dry-eyed boy at the front of the service. 

Viktor did not cry at his parents’ deaths. He did not cry at his parents’ funeral. The dozen or so attendees were much too polite to question why. 

In the months and years after, Viktor cursed himself for seeming so callous–his own _parents_ , he was a _child_ , so why did he not shed a single tear? As a sort of self-flagellation, he took it upon himself to hold candlelight vigils on the anniversary of their deaths. Each time, he spoke softly to himself in the older Zaunite tongue, out of respect for their lineage–his lineage. He reminded himself who they had been, what they had been to him. 

And Viktor wept.

* * *

Here, in the cold halls of the College of Techmaturgy, Viktor sits alone in his room, oblivious to the raucous music pounding above and beneath him. The end of spring exams. His fellow students are rejoicing, but despite what seems an almost obligatory bottle of liquor at his bedside, he does not share their merriment. 

In shaking hands, he holds two sheets of parchment. An obituary from Piltover, fresh, printed only this past week. An obituary from Zaun, many years older, stained with age. The latter he has read and re-read too many times to count, in a vain attempt to convince his own mind that his parents are not somehow on some extended vacation, that they will be back any day now with stories and presents and–

_In loving memory_ , says the poorly-aged paper, _of Mikhail and Eva Alkaev, aged 41 and 38._ Below the dry text are two photographs–his father at work, his mother posing sweetly with her then newborn son. Viktor’s fingertips trace the lines of their faces, and he trembles.

The new parchment he has already scanned and re-scanned enough to have every letter, every imperfection in the printing memorized. A photograph first, of a girl–smiling, laughing, the light in her eyes shining even through the black-and-grey ink. Off-frame, he knows, there is a man, but two years younger than Viktor, staring up at her awe- and lovestruck, a camera of his own clutched in slim, nervous fingers.

(The corresponding photo, which sits in a humble frame on his nightstand, he took himself. She smiled for his camera, not the hired photographer.)

_In loving memory_ , says the crisp, white sheet, _of Orianna Reveck, aged 19. May her spirit dance evermore in the halls of the gods._

It’s a foolish wish, Viktor thinks. If there are gods, they are cruel things who couldn’t care less about the affairs of men. Certainly they would not welcome such a little creature, bright and sweet as she was, into their supposed halls. If the human body leaves behind a spirit, neither hers nor his parents’ are dancing much of anywhere. 

Such bitterness has helped him, in darker nights, to keep his composure. He over-analyzes the well-wishes of the faithful, silently spitting back his retorts but never saying a word aloud. 

Tonight, however, the burden of his mourning is far too heavy. Viktor folds the letter as delicately as his shaking hands will allow and retreats to his bed, his chest collapsing quietly into itself, his mind an incoherent scream of pain. 

Time does not heal all wounds, he thinks. It only seals them for a while to reopen later, as fresh as the day it was gouged. After all, if he were healed, then he would be neutral, level-headed. He would use his previous experience with death to better cope with the news spread before him. He would not be weeping, alone, the names of the dead spilling from his tongue in incoherent streams.

Viktor does not know  how long he sits there. Time passes as painfully slow as it had the morning after his parents’ deaths. 

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

When his eyes dry for lack of any more tears to shed, Viktor cradles the bottle at his bedside and prays to gods he cannot believe in that it will give him a silent, dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly wrote this for the Viktor blog I run on Tumblr, as a sort-of reaction to some very bad personal news I received recently. (No one in my family has recently died, before anyone starts to worry about that.) As the only other muse I have who definitely lost his parents is Swain, and you (hopefully) know how I write Swain by now... yeeeaaah, if I'm gonna write ventfic about familial death, it's gotta be Viktor.  
> Apologies if it wasn't particularly polished; I haven't been in a particularly solid mental state over the past forty-eight hours or so, and didn't really give myself a chance to edit as a result.


End file.
